RedStarRocket91

One of the big things about Halo 4's playlist organisation that sets it apart from previous titles is the division of the traditional Objective playlist into a new set of smaller ones, each themed around a single game type. If you want to play Capture the Flag or Oddball, you no longer have to join a playlist which simply offers non-Slayer gametypes at random and hope that the rest of your lobby share your desires: if you wish to play them now, you can choose a playlist and get your favourite gametype guaranteed, with nothing left to worry about but which map to play. This is a big departure from previous Halo games, where the only options for getting non-Slayer play outside the previously-mentioned Objective playlist were to either play Infection, which had its own dedicated space in Reach, or to join in with one that offered both Slayer and Objective games, such as Doubles, Multi-Team, Big Team and Lone Wolves. This system of organisation also arguably has made the individual playlist populations healthier: while in the past many players would avoid the Objective playlist altogether, because they didn't want to risk being stuck playing a gametype they disliked, being guaranteed the match they want has arguably increased their chances of jumping into the playlist, instead of simply going into Slayer. But despite the big advantage of always getting the game you want, this new system brings with it some pretty large disadvantages. The new Extraction game mode and SWAT weren't possible to play on release, except via Custom Games, and these gametypes also now exist exclusively within their own playlists: Big Team games are now purely Slayer-based, and free-for-all matchmaking now revolves solely around the new Regicide gametype. This is particularly disappointing for those players who feel that Regicide is somewhat lacking, or prefer their large-scale games to feature the occasional Flag or Hill, as while in the past Halo games dominated the FPS-multiplayer market, with so many other popular shooters now around it can be difficult to get enough friends together at the same time to play custom games if the playlists don't match their desires. So, what's your opinion on the current playlist organisation? Do you think splitting up the organisation with more emphasis on individual objective gametypes will help their population in the long-term? Would you like to see more options in Big Team and free-for-all games? Would you even like to see the return of the mixed-bag Objective playlist? Or do you think that bringing in new playlists would do more harm than good, decreasing their populations and preventing people from getting into a balanced game with a good connection?

Everyone and their dog claims to have been playing competitive Halo since the second game, and yet nobody remember what a horrifying killing machine the Battle Rifle was back then. It didn't have bullet travel time; killed in four shots; had almost nothing in the way of bullet spread; and had a ton of aim assist. It didn't get nerfed in Halo 3 because Bungie wanted to focus more on short-range combat: it got nerfed because it was game-breakingly overpowered. The only functional differences between the old Battle Rifle and the new DMR are that the the latter has less aim assist, a more powerful scope, and an increased kill time. The new Battle Rifle is basically the same as it was in Halo 3: the new DMR is basically the Battle Rifle from Halo 2. If you don't believe me, boot up the old girl and play some splitscreen. Anyway, the new Battle Rifle is still perfectly capable of beating the DMR one-on-one. As far as I can tell, the Battle Rifle has a very slightly faster kill time, so as long as every shot hits you shouldn't have any problems. Alternatively, try using an automatic weapon up close: the new Assault Rifle feels more powerful than any version since the original, and I've killed quite a few precision-weapon players up close with it, sometimes even after they'd landed the first shot. The real difference as far as balance goes is now that the Battle Rifle is the most general-purpose of all the spawning weapons: it beats all of the others when outside their effective ranges, but loses when within them. Just use it at the correct distance and you'll win if your aim's up to standard. It's not longer a gun which is clearly superior to every other option, and to be honest, that's something I prefer over Halo 2. As with the 'problems' with Sniper Rifles, they have an easier job than ever. Getting hit no longer kicks you out of your scope, so they don't have to worry about scoping back in while trying to line up a shot. A good sniper will still get a headshot if they have even half a second of visibility on a target, so in the time it takes to pop out and take your shot, you can quite easily be killed.

I think the DMR works fine as it is - sure, it's very powerful at range, but then it's supposed to be. At close range, it's basically worthless - get right up to them with an Assault Rifle or Storm Rifle and they're VERY easy to overpower. If you don't have anything automatic, just stay indoors or out of their line of sight, and you should be fine. Plus, if the person using the DMR isn't a good shot, it's pretty much worthless due to the weaker aim assist than in Reach. It's basically a much higher risk/reward version of the Battle Rifle: and if someone is good enough to use it at peak effectiveness, they should get rewarded with fast kill times.

The AI has been able to outmanoeuvre the player in terms of Banshee control since Halo 3 - have a look at the ones near the start of 'The Covenant', just after you get into the Warthog, to see what I mean. I did notice the Banshee felt a little different this time around, though. A bit 'heavier', so to speak - it turns less quickly and over a wider area, tricks and rolls are less effective and take longer, and generally moving around a lot more slowly than it used to. I'd like to see a minor speed buff, at the very least - right now it feels a tad underpowered, though I suppose that's to make up for the extra health it has versus small arms (something I really don't miss for Reach).

Sometimes they get replaced, sometimes they don't. I joined a CtF game halfway through the other day, full teams. When the next game started, it was just me against two other people, but within three minutes the teams were full again. It could just be that you've had bad luck so far, or you got caught up in the server problems they had a few days back. Anyway, my main problem with the Incineration Cannon isn't that it's overpowered, it's that the projectiles are really hard to see. At least when you're on the receiving end of a Rocket Launcher or Fuel Rod Gun, it's very easy to see when it's been fired toward you - the rockets leave a smoke trail and glow brightly, while the fuel rods themselves are large and bright green. The incineration bolts aren't very bright, and are partially see-through, so I usually don't even know what it was that killed me at first. In terms of power, it's not significantly worse than the Rocket Launcher, and it only has one shot at a time.

I don't really agree. If people are just hiding in one spot for the whole game, they're unlikely to earn one in the first place - you have to be going out and getting into the fight if you want to earn one, so I think it works well as is.

This is really well deserved, Choots! I can't think of anyone who better deserves to be brought into the Legendary club!

Again, that's not going to help once people pick the Operator specialisation. And if people don't have a loadout with a plasma pistol, they're still going to be in trouble.

All it really needs is a little bit more range. As is, accounting for the start/stop animation timings you could cover the same kind of distance just by running. Let us move even twice the current distance, and it'll become a lot more balanced.

Can you tell us what the error message says? That might narrow down the list of potential problems a bit.

What's really needed is some more anti-vehicle weaponry back at each base - this is what the Missile Pods were great for in Halo 3, as they were pretty much useless for attacking, but good at holding off vehicles that got too close. Otherwise things are only going to get worse as time going on and people start using the Operator specialisation, which means their vehicles aren't as badly affected by EMP shots from Plasma Pistols. As is, I tend to agree that there's too much vehicular power. If your team has its Mantis and Banshee destroyed, and the other team still have theirs, what can you really do from that point to fight back?

You've got to admit though, it does seem a little odd that while every Halo game has improved on its predecessors in terms of postgame stats, Halo 4 has less. I mean surely, it would have taken more effort to take stuff out than just use the one they already had in place from Reach, right?

It's only been out one day - it's a little early to start trying to claim to be a veteran, isn't it? Anyway. I happen to agree that the DMR is overpowered, as I'm already regularly beating players with Battle Rifles and Assault Rifles at medium-close ranges. That said, the DMR definitely seems to have a little less in the way of aim assist than the Battle Rifle, plus if you take a hit while scoped in with the DMR, your aim rises a little, making it harder to keep on target: plus, you either hit or miss outright, while with the Battle Rifle you're much more likely to hit with at least part of a burst. So overall, the DMR is like a 'pro' version of the Battle Rifle: if you're good it's much better, but if you're not so good, it's worse.

Can't believe I'm derailing my own thread, but they've already announced a TU?

Can we get this as like, a replacement logo specifically for the Halo 4 section? Absolutely made my day!

EDIT: Wow, this post was a LOT bigger than I thought. Spoiler tag added to try and keep thread pages at a reasonably length.

It is. Yep. If someone can't trust their friends to play a game without insulting people, they shouldn't let them onto their account. Get them to bring their own profile on a memory unit, or recover it via XBL. And if said friends are the kind of people who go to that person's house, play their games while they're asleep, and then use their account to throw bigotry at others knowing that it will result in a ban, that person should probably think about getting some new friends because the ones they have clearly aren't worth having. If you didn't say anything, you won't get in trouble. They'll check the records to find out who said what. If you're worried, then tell the person saying sexist things that you think they're an idiot and you don't agree with them: that way you'll not only have a record of your voice in your history which sounds different from what's said in-game, but it'll be a record which overtly disagrees with what's being said. If you don't have a mic, you obviously can't be guilty, so don't worry about that either. That's not what happens at all. Where I work, if I were to insult someone just because of their gender or skin colour, I'd be looking for a new job by the end of the day. Plus, everyone HAS just been warned about it, so there's no excuse for not knowing. Everyone has to say they'd read and agree to the Terms and Conditions of using XBL when they sign up, including playing by the rules of the Code of Conduct. Yep. And all that proves is that the system we have in place to stop people from being racist or sexist is working. Even though the very first thing they did on XBL was agree that they'd read the Terms and Conditions, including the Code of Conduct. Which says very clearly that people will get banned for being racist or sexist. I mean, how could they not be aware of it? They agreed in a legally binding document that they understood and agreed to them. There's no excuse for not knowing the rules and someone saying they didn't bother reading them when they're in trouble just makes them a particularly stupid bigot.

Luckily, it's a choice. If someone doesn't want to get perma-banned, they can just, you know, not say anything. And if someone is worried that they'll have a bad game and say something they don't mean - I know I spend a lot of games swearing pretty much non-stop - then they can always just play without a microphone. The only thing about themselves anyone should be worrying about while they're playing a game is how well they're doing: they shouldn't be afraid to talk to other people just because of their skin colour, genitals, or sexual preferences. If someone is so incapable of reining in their bigotry that even with the threat of a perma-ban hanging over them they still insist on insulting people for things that have nothing to do with the game, then getting banned from XBL is the least of the problems in their lives and I for one don't have any sympathy at all for them. On the other hand... This news actually comes as kind of a disappointment. While I'm glad they're trying to do something about the sexism, as Ventus has already said, the racism and homophobia really is much worse. It would be nice if they'd announced a more general crackdown on this kind of stuff, instead of focussing exclusively on girls getting harassed. While the venom that gets thrown at them really is horrible, it's not any worse than the stuff that's said to homosexual gamers, and they shouldn't be worried that 343i isn't as worried about protecting them. That's misogyny. Sexism goes both ways. EDIT: Seriously, 'g a y' gets swear-filtered out now? That's not cursing any more than saying 'straight'.

I've been thinking this over for a while now, trying to decide whether or not to post this. I haven't been very active of late, and certainly not as active as I was towards the start of the year - it's now perhaps three months since I was posting with anything approaching regularity, and unfortunately that's a situation which is probably going to continue. At any rate, I feel like it's best to announce this 'officially', instead of just via status update. Effective immediately, I'll be taking a break from the site. As some of you may know, I have ongoing issues with my mental health, and they're now severe enough to interfere with my day-to-day life. One of the main symptoms is that I have difficulty concentrating - and that makes posting in my usual, verbose manner very difficult. Reading all the way through threads is something I like to do before I post, but I now feel that it's something I'm doing because I should, rather than for enjoyment. It's not a good state of mind to write a post with, and there's really no point being part of the community if I'm not listening to what other people have to say. To clarify, I will be back at some point. I don't know quite how long, though I'd guess it'll be a month or so at the very least. Considering how little I've been around for the past few months, my absence shouldn't even be that noticeable: this is more just to let everyone know what's going on, and that I'm not just leaving through boredom or bad blood. When my mind is clear, I still love talking to everyone and reading through threads. The problem is that I'm just not in that mindset often enough at the moment. As ever, I can be reached via Skype or my Gmail account, or via PM over Xbox Live. I'll also respond to any PMs on here when I get back. And I will be back. Much <3, Red

So if there's already a problem it doesn't matter if we make it worse? That's merely my opinion. I don't think it should be important to people that we have even more stuff when we haven't yet had a chance to use everything we've been promised. If it is important to you then great, but I'd personally prefer that we have a small amount of stuff from launch that everyone gets, rather than splitting up the player base purely because of DLC that only affects character models, rather than anything that actively contributes to gameplay. If someone seriously thinks the way their Spartan looks is more important than getting a good, balanced game in matchmaking, then I, frankly, think they're odd.

What about Objective playlists, or non-Infinity playlists?

It might not even be that hard to implement. Both Red and Blue appear to have their own logos now anyway, and they seem to be made from the same components as individual player emblems (i.e you can recreate the logos of Red and Blue to use on your own Spartan if you wish). It could perhaps be set so that if players have different emblems then the default Red and Blue logos are placed on the flags, but if everyone on a team has the same logo, that replaces them. Great idea, would be quite happy to see this implemented!

While it's good to know your teammates, a lot of people go into matchmaking by themselves. It's very, very difficult to learn who's on your team and who isn't when you have a whole new set of players every single game. I do start picking it up sort of halfway through a game, but it's far better to know from the start - especially if you have something as devastating as a Rocket Launcher on the map, when knowing whether it's controlled by your team or the opponents can be incredibly important.

I don't agree with this. It would either mean a mandatory download for all players in order for their consoles to be able to interpret the information they're receiving, or it would mean players with the DLC would only be able to play with others who had it, segregating the player base. The former is a bad idea because it's not fair to players who don't have a lot of hard drive space, or who have limited bandwidth or download caps. This would be even worse if it's a paid DLC, as there's nothing worse than having your hard drive cluttered up with content which you can't access. The latter is a bad idea, too. It reduces the player pool in each playlist, making it harder to make balanced teams for each match and increasing search times. It's particularly bad once player populations begin to drop off a few months down the line, as always happens as people naturally move on to new things. Look at how low the populations of the DLC playlists in Reach are. Imagine if that was all you could be matched up against for every single game, except you had no way of telling which playlists those players were in. Also, are people seriously suggesting there isn't enough customisation in Halo 4? We haven't even had a chance to use all the stuff in it yet and we're already saying we need more. This is stuff that has no effect on gameplay whatsoever. It really shouldn't be that important.